Call Centers Replaced Many Doctors’ Receptionists. Now, AI Is Coming for Call Centers. - KFF Health News
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Artificial intelligence products with lifelike voices are being marketed to schedule or cancel medical visits, refill prescriptions, and help triage patients. Soon, many patients might initiate contact with the health system by speaking not with a human but with AI.

At one call center in the Philippines, workers help Americans with diabetes or neurological conditions troubleshoot devices that monitor their health. Sometimes they get pressing calls: elderly patients who are alone and experiencing a medical emergency.

  • muusemuuse@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    7 hours ago

    I do call center work for a medical insurance company and some providers are already doing this. There is one that has a bot called EVA and she’s really pushy, doesn’t understand challenges or handle being told she’s wrong, she will ask several questions but let you only answer one before moving on rather than letting you answer her completely, she’s just a disaster. In some cases she will just hang up on you can call back and do it all again. I am absolutely certain she’s going to get that provider sued eventually.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Oh yeah the hanging up on you is really common. I would literally prefer a phone tree than having to talk to an AI because if what I wanted was something that would be simply explained to an AI, I would have done it myself on the website. The reason I’m calling is because I need someone with an actual brain, and in an understanding of the business, to use their brain to assist me with my somewhat complicated situation.

      One time I got a credit card sent to my address that was for someone else. The letter was somehow addressed to me, but the credit card wasn’t for me and I hadn’t requested a credit card from this company. So I called the support line up and the stupid AI kept asking me for my customer ID. I told it I didn’t have a customer ID because I wasn’t a customer, and it said “thank you” and hung up on me. Fantastic.

      In the end I had to call them out on Twitter in order to get in contact with a human.